Blog Standard Stuff

I can’t believe how useful and informative the IE blog has been since its launch. Once the topic of rumour, guesswork and conjecture, what’s happening with IE is more open than I could ever have imagined. There is some more news about IE that I wanted to pick through here (you can read about all of the new features previously not mentioned here).

• Firstly, there is news that IE7 will include a native XMLHTTPRequest object for Javascript applications - no ActiveXObject needs to be created, which is great news for developers. You all hate ActiveX, right? ;-)
• Secondly, the select element has been rebuilt as a "windowless control, so it can be visually layered under other elements". Comments on the thread point to the popularity of that move, but I would like to find out if in rebuilding it has the IE team also made it possible to style the select element better using CSS? Styling forms in CSS is all well and good, but this pesky little element always lets the side down. Borders? Nope, you’re having a laugh, mate! For me, it would be a missed opportunuity if they have re-worked the select element and not taken this golden opportunity to put that right (but maybe I’m misunderstanding the scope of the rebuild)
• IE is getting page zoom! I wonder if this will be an Opera-style page zoom whereby all elements scale up? And how will this impact font scaling (although I’ve had a dig around, I can’t see whether IE7 will change its font sizing beyond the current 5 levels)
• Finally, there’s news of a Web Developer Toolbar. Well, readers of this site will already be familiar with the excellent toolbar that’s available for Firefox/Mozilla. It’s one of the main reasons why I am so wedded to using Firefox, so it’s not difficult to see why the Microsoft team are looking into adding this in - a carrot to dangle in front of otherwise reticent developers. One request I’d like to make here though - please, Microsoft, play nice. Don’t do what Aevita did (and please don’t tell me that you bought the toolbar off Aevita, explaining why it’s no longer on their site!).

Posted on Web Standards Project Buzz

So, I’m in Germany. Munich, to be precise. It’s getting late in the afternoon and the level of the sun is quite low. I’m trying to take a photo of a building in a square, one with archways and statues. Try as I might, I can’t quite squeeze it in without taking quite a few steps back. As I get to the point where the whole thing fits in the viewfinder, the sun peeks out over the top of the building causing lens flare. Damn. Back in the day I used to have a good SLR which I’d always keep a lens hood on for this very reason, but I’d have to improvise …

I looked at the screen of the digital camera and then put my hand out in front of the camera slightly, just over the top of the lens. It’s a fine art, blocking lens flare like this. My hand was in the picture, so I started moving the hand up, out, a little to the left, back to the right, just trying to find that sweet spot where the building was in view and the lens flare was eliminated. Finally, with my hand out at full stretch just above the camera , I got the correct spot - at last!

It was at this point that I realised I was standing in the streets of Munich doing what appeared to be a Nazi salute to a building that was a significant building in the Third Reich’s past.

Dean said: “I cut my teeth on a BBC Micro“.

And I cut my forehead when my pant elastic failed and I fell through a pane of glass in a door. I win.

On a plus point, these pants look to be up to the job: